JobcentrePlus now STOP you getting jobs

I had pretty appalling service at the Jobcentre this morning.

I would elaborate but I think a complaint letter says it better, so I'll share that with you.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to inform you of my dismay at the "help" and "service" I have received from the Jobcentre and it's staff.

I was made redundant in January 2009 and have struggled to find work ever since. I have managed to find a number of temporary jobs through agencies that were either unsuitable or never really long term. I have also had a number of interviews which I have been unsuccessful in.

It was with great reluctance that I signed up to receive unemployment benefit because of the automatic negative impact it has on my own self worth, but I did it simply because I could not afford not to while I was unemployed. There is a wide range of criteria that I as a jobseeker have to agree to fulfil, such as agreeing to do at least 3 things to look for a job inbetween signing dates. I do that at least every hour of every day. I have to prove that I am looking for work. I do that, too.

I was however under the impression that I would also receive a great level of support to get back into work. Not only have I had no help whatsoever from yourselves but today I have realised that you actively stop people going for a job.

In my 15 months plus since I was made redundant I have managed to find one suitable position through the Jobcentre that has actually replied to me. The position was in London but, I thought after checking it out, the position is within walking distance of where some of my family live and have agreed to let me live there rent free for a couple of months. So, imagine my delight when they rung me back within hours of my application on Wednesday 28th April to say if I could get down to London for Friday 30th April they would interview me. It was an agency who were dealing with the application but they said it would basically be just to fill in the paperwork and then they could send me to interview. I was hesitant because I didn't think I would be able to, so I said I doubted that I would due to time constraints.

However I then remembered a comment made in a Back to Work group session I had last Thursday where I was reminded of the Travel to Work scheme, anything out of area that could be proven and I would be able to get my travel costs paid for.

Last year I did have a couple of interviews where I used this scheme but unfortunately I was successful. My troubles didn't end there because I was given conflicting advice from Jobcentre advisors who told me I could claim retrospectively and then said I couldn't, so I was left out of pocket until I was eventually refunded. I was however told that it would be "too cheeky" to ask for the cost of a Travelcard in London to be refunded.

I was then told twice in March that I couldn't recover costs for travelling to an interview because it was retrospective, regardless of the fact that my travelling was so short notice I would not have been able to do so anyway.

Anyway, I thought, however short notice if I went in on Thursday 29th April it would still be in advance and I would be able to claim the costs. I rung the agency who said if I could do that then they would put me forward for the interview, and I said that I would let them know as soon as I knew. So, though I was due to sign in the afternoon, I went first thing so that I would have maximum time to travel and prepare for the interview.

Before I had even given the details of the job the advisor (name removed) tried to put me off. After being asked when the interview was, I said, "tomorrow" (Friday) and then she said "what time?". Obviously I didn't know the exact time and said I had the details if she wanted to contact the agency. She then said "you know you would have to go and collect the travel voucher today" to which I responded was fine, because I would be going into town anyway to get the train.

She then said that two day travel vouchers don't get warranted. Obviously I am not sure if this is true or not but if it is, it is a bit unreasonable to expect someone to get up at 4am to get the earliest train from (location removed) to London at 5:30am and allow time for the inner city commute to (inner city location removed) if they wanted to see me at 9am, and even that would be an incredible rush.

Moreover, the fact that a two day return cost £60.00 and the cheapest one day return costs £165.00 (with the cheapest two single tickets coming to £130) doesn't even make that cost efficient.

Still, she then said how would I expect to stay down there. I said I had relatives within walking distance and I wouldn't need or apply for any overnight costs. She then said she would ring the agency, she did, and seemingly interrupted the person she was speaking to after receiving confirmation that I would need to go into the agency prior to the interview. She hung up the phone and then told me I can't claim costs for an agency. I told her that I had been informed that was merely a formality and that the interview for the job would be tomorrow, she said no, it was just to sign up for the agency and the travel to interview scheme doesn't cover that. She then said that obviously the agency just wanted me to register and wouldn't put me through to an interview immediately because "they would have to run the background checks" on me first and wait for those.

I was confused, as you would reasonably expect, having not only been the recipient of seemingly inaccurate information from the agency but also repeatingly conflicting, contradictory advice from the advisor who kept telling me different reasons for why she wouldn't permit me the travel costs before then going onto ring the agency anyway.

After a short while actually rationalising everything I had been told, I rung the agency back. I thought that I should find out if what the advisor said was true and it was just to sign up for the agency, with the feeling that if there really was still an interview available I might just lend yet more money and end up owing even more just in the mere hope that I could get a job.

I was surprised to learn that yes, I would have been put forward for an interview immediately and that registering was just a formality due to the short notice of it. There would be no need for background checks, and I wouldn't just have been travelling to merely sign up with the agency. Unfortunately though due to what they had heard from the jobcentre advisor they had already put forward someone else for the role anyway, so I couldn't apply for this position unless I was willing to travel down anyway and be on standby incase that person didn't get the job.

Obviously I knew there was no chance of getting help for that and I couldn't personally justify spending another £75 (including travelcards to get back etc) but I was disgusted to realise that I had been lied to, and probably repeatedly lied to, by someone who had immediately given me the impression anyway that she was in no mood to help me get a job, someone whose responsibility it is to actually help people get into work.

Of course I am aware of my responsibility to find work. It's a responsibility to myself first and foremost, because I have bills and payments that I simply can't afford to get out of. I'm aware of the consequences of failing to assume my responsibility, that my "benefit" may be stopped.

What are the consequences, though, for someone who has actively stopped me applying for a job that I would have been quite likely to get considering there were only 2 applicants and I was over qualified for it anyway? Will she be responsible for paying my phone bill? Will she be able to pay the £7,000 I am contractually obligated to pay for my wedding in August? Will she cover the interest payments I have to pay as a result?

Are there any consequences or ramifications at all for someone who lies to someone who desperately needs a job to stop them even applying for it? That it was a job actually advertised BY the jobcentre makes least sense of all!!

I have grown accustomed to the non-help of the Jobcentre. The staff are not really helpful or particularly intelligent themselves, the job points and websites mainly run agency jobs which apparently are excluded from help by the Jobcentre or else advertise the same job about 50 times, clogging up the engine and making you feel like you're applying for many different roles when you're not. I never thought I would actually see the day, though, when someone who is employed explicitly to help people as much as they can so they have the best chance of employment actively refuses to help an unemployed person who is willing to jump through all of the many hoops and ridiculous policies JUST for a chance, and when asked why, lies to their face.

Thanks for nothing,

St. George's Day. And I've never felt less proud to be British.

St. George's Day. A day to be proud to be English.

Proud to be part of a country that launched a British jobs for British workers campaign; and gave over 80% to foreign workers, a trend that continued when tens of thousands of people were hit by redundancy and have been unable to find work since. Supported by a private sector jobcentre that exists seemingly only to try and catch people out and not physically or actively do anything to help people back into work. Underpinned by one of the campaigning political party's proposal to pay migrants upto £50,000 if they find work outside of the UK to help stem the population boom, but won't dedicate that sort of money to British citizens who actually want to emigrate but can't because they don't have money.

A country that has become obsessed with political correctness and what is morally right or wrong to the extent where anybody with an opinion to challenge it gets labelled a bigot against whatever affinity the opinion concerns. This isn't encouraging tolerance; it's force feeding it and breeding contempt. Still, a nation that now confuses national pride with racism, from those that believe in it to those that don't.

A country with a media system that can't decide whether it's working class or middle class and preys like vultures on every soul thrust into the public spotlight, whether they wanted to be there or not. They love you then they hate you or, worse still, make you a figure of public ridicule. Some sign up for the merry go round, some get forced on it. One thing's for sure, the ride is never pleasant. Nobody gets off without paying the price.

Celebrities and high profile sporting figures abusing their position and financial power to humiliate and ruin the lifes of the ordinary man or woman.

TV chat shows under the fraudulent guise of "support" drag out the dregs of council estates in a bearbaiting exercise that still bizarrely make them feel like they're stars in scumville; the middle class sneer at what Britain has become because the poor people are taking advantage of the freebies that are being handed to them and rolling round like pigs in muck. There's no middle ground, no room to despair at the actions of either side, because that places you in the grey area that simply doesn't exist anymore.

A police force that is inherently corrupt and is by and large more cowardly than the public it pretends to protect. A general public that is more likely to run off with your dropped bag of shopping than pick it up for you. A lack of respect for the elderly; a lack of respect for the youth; where once the 20-35 year old white male was perceived king, he must now be denounced forever more. Where teenagers breed to increase their own income to feed their drug habits; where speaking out about crime is more likely to see you killed or beaten than the perpretators punished.

A land where a man cannot protect his own home.

A land where people who were born here and been alive longer than their accusers are told to go back where they came from.

A country where families can live in fear of unprovoked, repeated attacks because they happen to share a postcode with subhuman morons.

A country that still tries to desperately believe that being English stands for anything good anymore.

I want to escape being English. But the country won't let me.

Introduction; my journey through redundancy and unemployment

Hello.
I've decided to join the great wide world of internet blogging though the intention is to create more of a "column" than a journal.

I decided to see how it would be if I branch out a little and just put across my general opinion - having contributed my football/soccer opinion on http://www.Stretford-End.com since 2007 I figured the time was right and perhaps I would at least generate a little bit of interest rather than just starting a blog that went nowhere. This might still go nowhere but the odds are slightly more in my favour than they would have been if this was 3 years ago.

So, a little about me. Not too much but enough to make this relevant. I was made redundant in January of 2009 and have had little luck finding a position since. None of the positions I have ever held or, indeed, have applied for, have been my "dream" job as a creative writer / journalist. The time has passed (well, it hasn't, but the motivation for that isn't as strong as the motivation for money as instant as possible) and at school although writing and English were my strong points, the accompanying qualifications which required knowing the intricate details of which camera is the best to use weren't. I have a keen interest in films but then again only in the kind I like. Does that even make any sense? I suppose not. I'll elaborate on that later, I guess.
That will do as an introduction as I have a juicy subject to open with.

I have had two what you would describe as long term jobs, that being positions I could have seen myself developing a career. The first was in the private sector and the next was for an educational company - this was the role I was made redundant from.

Unfortunately the timing of that was pretty poor. I had recently gotten engaged and we were planning our wedding, which we thought we had plenty of time to do. Decided on what at the time seemed a practical decision to have a long engagement. Discovered that it would be more cost efficient to get married in Florida - fortunately, a mutual dream.

Well, 15 months have passed since the redundancy, and a handful of temporary and agency positions and failed interviews later mean that I've been unable to really contribute to the wedding so far.

I suppose it's as good a time as any to ask the first poser, what price your dignity?

My role in the educational company was one where I felt I had a degree of importance; that I was a crucial part of getting the job done, and that my opinion was valued. And yet being made redundant at the time didn't phase me; I felt bullish and confident enough in my own ability that I would walk into another job.

Time passed - 9 months, to be exact - and I was getting no joy so I signed up with an agency, they found me a role at one of the country's most well known delivery companies in a customer service based capacity. We were given limited training - 8 hour days that could probably be best described as 3 hours relevance, 5 hours talking about Facebook of all things (Isn't that supposed to be the other way around? I missed the change when you talked about Facebook in real life rather than your real life on Facebook). Anyway, the fallout was inevitable. During the training one of the new starters fell asleep - full on asleep - we all had a joke about it but the next day when that new starter came back, it was no longer funny.

I then had clashes with the trainer who turned out to be an employee of the company who was merely on the same level we were, just with over 3 years experience in the same position. With no hope of promotion. Perhaps understandably he was a bit of a jobsworth and perhaps deliberately he witheld information that would help us later on so he would seem more knowledgeable. The problem was that when most of the new starters received enquiries these would be issues he had no idea about, and after I had to deal with a particularly distressed customer the jobsworth bloke was, shall we say, disrespectful of me in front of other team members. Perhaps it's my own elevated sense of self importance or maybe I just find it difficult to understand the concept of speaking to someone like rubbish either in a personal or professional sense, but I wasn't about to stand for it. After a similar thing happened two more times, I found myself walking out after informing the manager of the circumstances. The initial relief of finding and starting the job - which, jobsworth aside, generally had a good team - was replaced by a feeling of having let down my family and fiancée.

I had to counter that with the thought that every now and then there comes a line where you have to personally evaluate and weigh up the professional and personal costs. Would this position be something I miss - poor money aside, I felt I had really lowered myself to get it because there was nothing else. Having come to the conclusion that my dignity was worth more and hopefully my family would understand, I felt a little more secure. My underlying thought was that I try to be a man of principle and I would hardly be that if I allowed myself to be spoken to as if I was a nobody.

The first time you make such a decision it makes it easier to do again - and I did, twice, once after a week at a local surgery and once after a few days at an online travel agents fielding calls from customers who had paid for their holiday and had not received confirmation that they were going sometimes on the day before they were due to leave. Classy move, and the customer service team were given the mandate (may I add, the only training given) that customers would get a call back within 48 hours. When that 48 hours expired and angry customers called back - some now on holiday with a hotel who didn't have their names down - I was told to stop asking people for advice. By the manager! Customers then quite rightly demand your name and use it whe slagging off the company. I know, I've done it.

Finally I got a temporary 2 week job through an agency at an online bookmakers to take calls from customers over the duration of one of the big sporting events - 4 days into that, I got a call that I thought would change my life. An invitation to an interview for an amazing position, closer to where my fianceé lives, the only catch being I would have to miss 2 days of the next weeks work to take it. The agency were completely uncompromising and inconsiderate and told me not to come back, that to me was a minor blotch, because it was a dream job. Not a journalist or writer but something that would properly make use of my qualifications, something that looked like it would become a true career, and something that would properly reward me. So, to me, it was a risk worth taking.

After going through 3 interviews (one after I was told the first role I applied for was being 'restructured', and the second after it didn't exist at all) and after encouragement from the head resourcer who had made me feel so confident that I felt I couldn't NOT be working there soon, the inevitable happened and I didn't get the role. And that's where we're at now, about 7 months to the wedding, no job, no-one likely to take me on for a full time role considering I'll be taking almost a month out to get married, and no way of cancelling the wedding and holiday that won't be almost as financially punishing as going through with it.

I know there are people worse off than myself. Rather than dwell over what I don't have; I count myself extremely lucky to have the family and friends that I do have, the people who like me for me and want to spend time with me.



I resigned myself, after weeks of thinking that borrowing from loved ones was less degrading, to signing on. I hate it. I hate the feeling of it and without being disrespectful the company that puts you in. I know from where I grew up that most people signing on don't want a job. They're just out to see how much money they can scam; people who live off the state and through credit, somehow able to afford plasma tv's and a cannabis addiction. Automatically by signing on you become one of "them", a statistic. Having spent all of my time out of work looking for it it is ridiculous to find myself having to prove that I am looking; from my own experience trying to help the unemployed or lower skilled, I know that they have very little motivation to even look for a job let alone pretend that they are. So how do they get away with it, and I have to prove it? I don't mind doing it for myself, but the same rules don't apply to everyone.

It seems they're more interested in how to catch you out and stop people claiming than actually helping them get a job. I still check the agencies but one in particular that I use - Randstand (I was going to protect names, but sod it.. they're one of those agencies that screen you and can send you into a position without the need for an interview) rung me up the other day. I missed the call and returned it, got through to a different person, it turns out the person I got through to was the same person (Sean, if you were wondering) who had put me forward for the travel agency position. The voice message I had received said they had an "interesting position" for me, when I got through to this guy he remembered me and said that the phone call was just a check up. So, it would seem that some agency staff will decide that you won't be allowed to apply for a position if they don't want you to. Is that abusing his position or does he have a right to do that considering I walked out of the role he had found me? Either way, I'd advise against p*ssing Sean off if you're with Randstad and need a job. He has the power. Honestly.

I suppose it's a little tame for a first post, but there it is. What are your own experiences through the economic crisis? Your experience with agencies? Your thoughts on "signing on"?

If you have an opinion or would like to hear my opinion on something, please comment or email me at yolkietalkie@yahoo.com